Report from Chris Smith

Up to 150 volunteers plan airlift of threatened hedgehogs

By James Freeman in the Herald, 27 th February 2003

AS MANY as 150 hedgehog lovers are expected to descend on the Western Isles this spring to find, capture, and remove as many of the animals, which are threatened with extermination, as possible.

The animal campaigners from across the UK have volunteered to take part in the plan before Scottish Natural Heritage culls of 5000 hedgehogs on the Uists in the Hebrides because they are threatening rare wading birds.

The hedgehog lovers have identified a holding centre for the animals until they can be taken off the island. They also say they have received offers from private aircraft owners and airlines to fly the hedgehogs back to the mainland at minimal cost. The rescue organisations also intend to enlist the help of islanders in finding hedgehogs and they will take their own vet with them.

The campaigners claim they will not be breaking the law simply by picking the animals up in daylight, although hunting the nocturnal animals using lamps requires an SNH licence.

SNH plans to kill the animals, first on North and then on South Uist and Benbecula, by lethal injection, to save the internationally important populations of wading birds. The hedgehogs, introduced to the islands in the 1970s, now number around 5000 and are systematically destroying the waders, which Scotland is obliged to protect under EU law, by eating their eggs.

SNH has received the plans and a licence application from a coalition of various groups. But it said it was disappointed that initial proposals to move the hedgehogs "fell well short of what we would regard as a scientifically rigorous trial".

A spokesman said: "We are concerned that some people seem intent on removing hedgehogs from a humane cull only to condemn them to an unknown fate which could involve slow and painful death.

"Existing data suggests that moving hedgehogs from the islands to the mainland could cause significant suffering both to those animals moved and to mainland hedgehogs."

SNH says it remains happy to talk with the groups. "Our plan is to begin culling hedgehogs in North Uist this spring in order to protect the internationally important bird populations," the spokesman said.

Les Ward, director of Advocates for Animals, said yesterday: "This refusal marks the end of the road between the groups and SNH. We talked to them on the basis that there would be no killing whatsoever. We are now meeting with all the groups to make plans to go to the Uists to get as many hedgehogs as we can. We are going for it."

Mr Ward insisted their ranks would include expert carers who could teach the less skilled how to handle and transport the animals, adding: "The Uist animals will be placed at special sites and their survival monitored. There remains no logical reason why one hedgehog should be killed."

© The Herald, 27 th February 2003

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